RI's 11th Hour Racing Team Reports Serious Damage to Foils Ahead of Next Ocean Race Leg

RI's 11th Hour Racing Team Reports Serious Damage to Foils Ahead of Next Ocean Race Leg

Rhode Island's 11th Hour Racing Team has announced that it has found "serious damage" to its foils, and has made a request to The Ocean Race race committee to replace them for the next leg.

The news comes after "non-destructive" testing in Cape Town, as the Rhode Island-based team awaits the start of the third leg -- which they say would be unsafe with the existing foils.

Wing-like foils are mounted under a sailing vessel's hull -- as the craft increases its speed, the hydrofoils lift the hull up and out of the water, greatly reducing wetted area, resulting in decreased drag and increased speed.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

The team finished in second place in the first leg of the global sailing race, and finished in third in the second leg. The next leg departs on February 26.

“The stopover in Cabo Verde was determined to be a ‘Short Stop’ - so only the five people who arrived on the boat could work on it - our shore crew could only stand on the sidelines and advise. We surveyed the foils from the water and explored a few of the small cracks by sanding off the paint," said Skipper -- and Rhode Island native -- Charlie Enright. "No damage to the carbon was evident at that time, and there were a lot of discussions and late-night calls back to the design team to consider all our options. Between us, we agreed that we had to get the boat safely to Cape Town where we knew we could bring the experts in to inspect further. So we proceeded with racing, yet with some caution."

“To head into the Southern Ocean for nearly a month with two damaged foils would be foolhardy and not a risk that I am prepared to take, not for the safety of my crew, of the boat, nor for our competitors, who ultimately are our safety net down there. I trust my design team and their recommendation. It’s disappointing, but the right decision to make,” added Enright.

 

Finding Faults

Three days after arriving in Cape Town having completed Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23, 11th Hour Racing Team discovered that both foils on its 60-foot race boat have suffered serious damage.

Following the team’s arrival in Cape Town on Sunday, February 12, all five boats in the race were lifted out of the water for checks and refit work before the fleet sets off for Brazil on February 26.

Once on the ground, the foils on 11th Hour Racing's boat Mālama were removed from the boat and had undergone surface Non-Destructive Testing. These non-invasive techniques determine the integrity of the structure of a boat and its appendages, and can be used to discover issues without causing any damage to the structure.

The survey found serious damage to both foils, and after consultation with the yacht’s design team, the advice given is that the foils will require extensive repair before going back into service. 

This work cannot be completed onsite in Cape Town before the boats leave on Sunday, February 26, for Leg 3 of The Ocean Race said the team. The consensus is it would be unsafe to venture further in the race with this set of foils, particularly with the next leg being a five-week-long marathon through the Southern Ocean.

The team has formally requested permission from the Race Committee to replace the foils onboard Mālama, so they can continue to compete in a safe and seaworthy manner. 

The foils will be returned to the manufacturer in Europe where the full extent of the damage will be assessed before undergoing the necessary repairs, anticipated to take a number of weeks.

The state-of-the-art yacht has sensors on key components to measure loads and to provide real-time data back to the team’s shore crew, both to analyze performance, but more importantly to continuously check the safety of the vessel.